


A Queen of the Seven Kingdoms

by aldojlc



Series: The Red Wolf [5]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Post Season 8, Sequel of sequels, Snippets, and as always, and vignettes, bamf Sansa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-11-02 06:03:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20646239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aldojlc/pseuds/aldojlc
Summary: Fifth in the series of stories which begins with "A War for Five Queens"





	1. The Reach - 335 AC

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't stop. The world of War/Five Queens called to me once more. So here it is, a series of non-chronological one shots, depictions of reign of the Queen, through her eyes, and the men and women she rules over, lords, ladies, and smallfolk alike. There may be some connecting threads in between, but each story will serve as its own one-shot.

**Sansa**

She grit her teeth, and felt every bit her age. Sitting at the Great Hall of Highgarden, the Queen Regnant readied herself for the confrontation, remembering the similar scenes from her past. There'd been the first time she sat in judgment, presiding over Littlefinger's trial. He'd meant something to her then, far more than he'd deserved, and somehow she had felt the need to hold back her own emotions from the lords who bore witness. There'd been countless trials since...the Glovers, Dragon Queen and her followers, Sweetrobin...her own uncle. She'd never felt anything close to fondness for Edmure Tully, but he _was_ family, he was her mother's beloved little brother...yet he'd raised his flag in rebellion against her. Sentencing him to a lifetime of imprisonment at Raventree Hall under the charge of Tytos Blackwood had not troubled her much, because it was a far more lenient punishment than he deserved, than what she'd given others guilty of the same crime, but disinheriting his children from Riverrun did weigh more upon her conscience, though she comforted herself they nevertheless lived good lives as charges of the Blackwoods, raised in the same castle as their gently imprisoned father.

But this one hurt, because it was her son, her firstborn, her heir, and how much it would hurt him, if he could ever find out. Which is why there was little audience with her in the chambers. To one side sat Queen Margaery, her former Hand, still a warm glow about her mischievous eyes even as she grew closer to sixty years of age. But there was little mischief about what they were about to preside over. Her own Hand was not present, nor any members of her Small Council. Though Petyr Arryn sat at the next table, the young Lord Paramount of the Vale nearly her own son's age, as well as his closest friend and confidante. And Corys Manderly, old Wyman's grandson and the new Lord Commander since Brienne's retirement, entered the chambers shortly, escorting in the Princess Elenia Tyrell, the future Queen of Westeros once she died and Rickon succeeded her.

"Your Grace," she knelt politely before her Queen. "Mother."

_Does the girl not know? Or is she an exceptionally good actor?_

But the Princess Elenia's face revealed her sudden panic when Ser Podrick Payne and Ser Ilyn Piper escorted another one of their fellow whitecloaks into the chambers, and her eyes shot wide when she recognized Ser Mikken Hogg of Sow's Horn.

_The Pig Knight. Of course it's him._

"They're lies," she hissed near violently. "Whatever you've heard about us, they're damned lies."

"Daughter," Margaery scolded, her voice, stripped of pretense and humor, as stern and serious as Sansa had ever heard her, "you will not disrespect your Queen by speaking out of turn."

"Ser Podrick," the Queen Regnant commanded, "repeat the words Ser Mikken said to you at the tavern."

"All of them?" Though he was neither the cleverest or strongest of men, Sansa had offered him the Lord Commander position out of deference to his long years of loyalty and steadfast service, but the man was cognizant enough of his own limits to recommend the Northman instead. She nodded, and he continued, coughing nervously beforehand. "'_I'll tell yer,_'" Podrick began, mimicking Mikken's coarser accent, spoken while presumably inebriated, "_'ain't no cunny like royal cunny. An' th' princess the best in the land, with both queens bein' shriveled an' dry..._'"

"Enough!" Her husband Beryn's angry exclaims echoed through the Great Hall, where they had all proclaimed her a Queen over a lifetime ago. Seated on her other flank opposite Margaery, Beryn never lost his temper. Except when it came to his family, and here he was, listening to a Knight of the Kingsguard call his wife shriveled, while discussing in sordid detail his affair with his own son's beloved wife. Though he was apologetic soon after, realizing his ire was directed at the wrong member of the Kingsguard. "Sorry Ser Podrick, I should not have raised my voice against you."

"It's no matter, Your Grace," Podrick replied. Her husband was only a Prince, after all, no king. But if the wives of Kings past could be referred to by the title, then Sansa figured the husband of the Queen Regnant ought receive the same favor.

"Did Ser Mikken specify to you which Princess he referred to," she asked, her voice maintaining its evenness even as her own heart trembled with righteous rage.

Podrick nodded, though less than eager. "I asked him, _'Princess?'_ He said _'aye, the rose bitch Elenia. An' one day the realm calls her their Queen, but she squeals 'me lord' only while ridin' me_.'"

"He lies," the accused Princess in question yelled angrily. Rickon's wife turned to her own mother, rather than the mother of her husband, the Crown Prince. "What man is above lies and boasts, even a Kingsguard?" Now she turned back to Sansa, a twinkle in her eye, as if she still believed her own ability to talk herself out of this one. "Ser Mikken's had an eye for me over the years, I cannot deny. Perhaps, in his drunken state, he gave to word his deepest and most shameful desires."

The girl was cleverer than most, Sansa had to admit, though her mind was but a pale shadow of her mother's. Yet, Elenia Tyrell was known across the realm not for her intellect, but her beauty, having inherited all her mother's curves and soft features, along with her father's height and slightly darker complexion. While their betrothal had been arranged before either one of them were born, she did not fault Rickon for falling into his duty so eagerly, her son having been besotted by Margaery's daughter the day he first set eyes upon her when they were both children.

Ignoring the Princess, she turned to Ilyn Piper. "What of you, Ser Ilyn? You drank at the same tavern as Ser Podrick and Ser Mikken. Did you hear the same words as Ser Podrick?"

"I did, Your Grace. Every word Ser Podrick said, I recall the same."

He'd been rather young to be appointed Kingsguard, though several years older than Jaime Lannister the day the future Kingslayer uttered his vows. His father had been amongst the lords who crowned her at Highgarden, and remained true to the crown even when his liege lord, her traitorous uncle, raised his banners most briefly in rebellion. Ilyn was Clement Piper's youngest and, by lucky happenstance, his ablest with both sword and lance, having won the tourney at Winterfell aged only eight and ten. He cut a dashing figure, hair brown tinged with yellow, bright blue eyes still imbued with the shine of youth...and Sansa imagined all who gazed upon the young man, clad gallantly in his armor, would have admired him the same way they could have admired a young Jaime Lannister, whilst he served still the old Mad King.

Watching the young man fidget, she leaned forward suspiciously. "You have more to say, Ser Ilyn?"

It did not escape her notice that it was to the Princess he looked nervously to at first, before returning his attention to his Queen.

"I'll remind you, Ser Ilyn," Queen Margaery said beside her, "that whichever royal personage you are pledged to, including my daughter, your vows to Queen Sansa of the Seven Kingdoms and Across the Narrow Sea supercedes all else."

Another furtive glance at the young princess. "There _is_ more, Your Grace."

"Tell me," she ordered.

"Three mornings ago," he began, while the Princess Elenia's face grew as pale as a northern woman's countenance, "I rose early, and went to gather Ser Mikken for the hunt...I saw the Princess Elenia leaving his chambers, wearing only her red nightgown..."

"You wretch, you cunt," Elenia screamed vilely at the man immediately.

"Forgive me, Your Grace," he continued, even as she continued screaming hysterically at him, even as Podrick had to subdue her and hold her arms together, "it could have been nothing, she could have just sought him out for conversation..."

"Conversation," Sansa asked skeptically.

"...except...she swore me to secrecy."

"You're an oathbreaker now," Elenia swore at him, "cursed be your fucking name."

"Than you for your honesty, Ser Ilyn," Sansa said calmly, even as her heart raged, before turning to the other man standing trial before her, whose defiance minutes earlier had turned to fear, now that both his brothers of the Kingsguard had turned against him. Ser Mikken of House Hogg dropped onto his knees.

"Yer Grace...I...I can't...all I've wanted was to serve my Queen, the realm, make my father proud." He was not much older than Ilyn Piper, though through his light brown beard, which colored grey at certain angles, he looked far more aged. It had been said he'd taken much to drink since his arrival in Eddardton, and Sansa should have thought to have looked more at his behavior with concern, if not for the fact that men were men, white cloaks or not, they drank, they frequented taverns and brothels...and Mikken Hogg was well regarded as one of the best swordsmen in the realm, the shining pride of his small House at the northern tip of the Crownlands.

"She came to me, I tried to resist the Princess, I tried to say no, she's a married woman, to the Crown Prince...," he continued, eyes welling up. "But she kept coming to my quarters, every night, when no one else could hear, she kept at it...a man can only be pushed so far..."

"Why did you not tell Lord Commander Manderly?" Margaery asked the man, unmoved by his pleading.

"I...I did not want to make trouble, Yer Grace...I...she's the Princess...I knew how serious the crime was..."

"So you decided to commit it yourself?" Sansa watched Elenia even as she questioned Mikken. Her son's wife stared a blank spot in the wall, eyes still seething, her silence itself an admission of the truth in Mikken's words, that it was she who had seduced him, and not the other way around.

"I..." The man broke down all over again. "My father...I've shamed my family...my mother would..."

Sansa looked over at Margaery, then at Beryn, the three of them exchanging a knowing look together. The trial was over, for all intents and purposes. All that remained was for the Queen Regnant to render her judgment.

"Ser Mikken of House Hogg," she began, leaning forward, not allowing the young man's obvious sorrow and regret to affect her resolve, "I sentence you to die."

His shoulders slumped, but she thought she saw relief in his light green eyes, no longer having to keep from the world this most dangerous secret.

"You'll take poison, the maesters will find a suitable one, the least painful as they can find. It will be announced that you suffered a sudden fever, and died within a day of the affliction. Your family will not be told the truth, and your name, and theirs, will not be muddied."

"Your Grace," Mikken breathed, finally pronouncing her title without slurring it, "I thank you for your mercy."

"Don't thank me," Sansa said coldly, "the mercy isn't for you." She looked around the room, at the few who gathered for this most secret of trials. "Word of this does not leave the room, no one can ever know of this. Especially the Crown Prince Rickon."

_It'll break his heart, to know the woman he loves with all his soul, the mother of his child, cares so little for his love, for their son._

Corys Manderly answered her first. "We are sworn to secrecy then, Your Grace."

"Till our dying day," Podrick continued.

She turned to the young princess, rage dampened but still stewing in her eyes, rage at what, Sansa wondered. Whether it'd be at her, or Rickon, or her own mother, or the world, she knew not, and it didn't matter.

"You're bound the same oath, Princess. Say the words."

"I swear it," the girl said, sulking. "My husband will never know."

"And nothing of the sort will happen again. If word reaches me that you so as even wink at another man, you'll take poison also, and of a far more painful variety, this I assure you, _Princess_."

It killed her inside, to have to spare the proud, spoiled girl she had to call her own daughter, for appearances' sake. Except executing her son's beloved wife would break his heart even more than her infidelity. And because she needed Margaery's support, more than ever, with tensions in the Free Cities rising, with the Dornish bitch acting up and giving her headaches once again. Executing Margaery's daughter, the sister of the future King of the Reach, would not do anything to help secure her son's reign either, fast approaching as that day was, now that she was past her fiftieth name-day.

"The realm hails Her Grace's mercy," Margaery proclaimed next to her, following her lead. Narrowing her eyes, the Queen of Thorns looked meanly at her daughter, equal parts anger and disappointment in her eyes. "And if you stray from Prince Rickon again, daughter of mine, damn the maesters and their poisons...I'll gut you with my own knife."

* * *

**Elenia**

She sought her mother out in her chambers. Before, when the Queen of the Reach was younger, her daughter had to take care to knock, lest she discover her mother in the throes of pleasure with yet another lover. She remembered a time when her mother was proclaimed by many the most beautiful woman in the land, rivaled only by the Wolf Queen herself. Pretty words to flatter two queens then, and both were assuredly shriveled old cunts now, all the beauty in the realm passed down solely to herself, so she would think.

"That was good theater, mother," she sneered. "The part about gutting me yourself...brilliant." The young princess clapped her hands in mocking applause.

"I mean it," her Queen mother replied, and the serious look in her eyes indicated there was no artifice to her words this time. "You disgrace me, daughter. In front of the Queen, no less."

"Fuck the Queen," Elenia spat, and in a moment her mother fell upon her.

_Gods, she's still quick._

Her head bashed against the wall, as she felt the bony fingers of the Queen of Thorns wrapped around her neck.

"Watch your words, girl," Margaery I of House Tyrell hissed at her. "Queen Sansa spared you this time, on my account. You live because of her...and because of me. Your lover Mikken dies a painless death, his honor unbesmirched before the rest of the realm, because of us."

In her mind, she smirked. _She still doesn't know. Good._

"Yes," Elenia gasped, her breath short as her mother clenched her fingers tighter across her neck, "you and the Wolf Bitch have run all seven kingdoms quite well, haven't you? In between bleedings, I suppose. While you both still had them."

Her mother had never laid hands upon her before. But then, she'd never angered her mother so much before. She smiled.

"But you and Queen Sansa won't live forever. The future of the Seven Kingdoms belongs to me. And Prince Rickon."

She felt her mother's grip loosen. "Not if you keep fucking every Kingsguard within half a league of you."

"I fucked one Kingsguard, mother. That's what, six dozen less than you?"

She half expected her mother to murder her on the spot. Rather than kill her only daughter, however, the Queen of the Reach withdrew, and Elenia could tell that her words had cut deep.

"_The Queen takes what is due her._ Isn't that what you've always said? You speak of shame, of honor besmirched...what of my _father's_ honor? If Prince Rickon cries because he finds out I've been unfaithful, how many times has my lord father cried because of his _whore_ wife?"

Margaery spun back around at her, but again, she held herself back. "Queen Sansa has rewarded amply your father. Not the least of which on my account, because of my behavior."

"Queen Sansa shows my Lord father favor because he is a great man, and a great lord! Because my honorable father supported her from the very beginning, against the Dragon Queen. Because he's rallied his banners and raised his sword for her countless times, because he ruled most ably the three cities of the East while he served in Braavos. Lord Arthur Hightower sits today as Queen Sansa's Hand because of his own merits...not because his whore wife took her title to her head and fucked every strapping lad who passed her by in all Seven Kingdoms...or is it nine, _Yer Grace,_ if we count the Crownlands and the Iron Islands...or actually, you've made the eighteen, haven't you, with one additionally for each and every one of the Free Cities..."

A harsh slap across her cheek. And it hurt. But she'd never show her hurt to her Queen mother. And she'd never admit that she did regret hurting sweet Rickon. She cared _something_ for the man, even her mother knew that. Perhaps she even loved the Prince, depending on how one defined the word. But why did that bind her to him forever, and no one else? She would be a Queen, once he took his throne. Why couldn't she do as her own Queen mother did, just because she was a Queen to a King, rather than a Queen Regnant of one kingdom?

"Your father and I have made peace with our...marriage a long time ago. I respect him, because he's a loyal and honorable man. And he respects me, well...," her mother actually laughed, "because I'm me, I suppose."

Looking at the old Queen of the Reach contemptuously, she crossed her arms. "Because there's no one like you, is there, mother?"

"No," her mother replied, glaring right back at her, her voice proud and regal and cold. "There's no one like me. Or Queen Sansa. The things we suffered...you couldn't begin to imagine, in your sweet song of a life. I've married thrice before, each its own test, and I remained true to each one of the three, while each lasted. If I've...indulged myself at times...it's because I deserve it, because it _is_ my due, to get some enjoyment out of life before I grew so old."

"And I haven't suffered? Walking into my mother fucking my own best friend Henryn...I'm surprised you saved Prince Rickon for me, without getting a taste of him first...I ought to be glad he's rather plain looking..."

"Enough," Margaery ordered, and at first Elenia thought she was going to hit her again, and this time, she wondered if she would hit back. But the Queen slumped her shoulders instead, and wandered away from her. "I'm sorry I hurt you, Elenia. I'm sorry I've hurt your father. I can't take back the things I've done, but I'm sorry it's cut you so deeply...that it's made you such a wretched, ungrateful woman. Who'll take all that's been given to her, and spit upon it."

_I don't care about being Queen, mother. You've never cared to see that. I just want to be a free woman, like you were. And I want Ilyn._ Ser Mikken she never cared about, though Elenia felt sorry he had to die, because of her. But all she wanted was to make Ilyn Piper _see_ her, not as the Prince's wife, but as a woman, a woman he could take for himself any time he wanted to, his vows or hers be damned.

The Queen's eyes met hers, and Elenia knew that their brief time as mother and daughter, however much spite and hate lay accumulated between them, was over, and when she spoke now, it was as her Queen, her voice speaking additionally for the Queen who reigned above her.

"I meant what I said, daughter. My own sins don't excuse yours. You can scoff at me, but Queen Sansa holds more power than any man or woman has seen in any of our histories. Cross her, cross her _family_, and there's not a hut you can hide in, on any continent."

Despite the ever present contempt, Elenia could not help a feel a shiver down her spine at her mother's words. Queen Sansa may be a useless old woman, but she knew the truth of it, how her brother was a greenseer who somehow knew anything and everything past, present, and future, that the Queen's sister was a ghost who could appear and disappear at will and be anywhere in body where her brother was in mind. That the King in the North's prowess with a sword rivaled any in the Kingsguard, including Ser Ilyn's, that his son Grenn could wield a sword near as well as his father, and an axe even better than King Jon. That whatever punishments the Queen Regnant could devise for her, her husband's younger brothers and sisters would do far worse were they to ever discover that she'd hurt their beloved eldest brother.

Her mother was right, she hated to admit. Seeing her chastened, the Queen of the Reach pressed further. "You gave birth to the heir to the Iron Throne less than six moons ago. Act like a good mother, for once."

"I'm not a mother, mother. I've never been motherly, I'll never be motherly."

"I don't care, find your Prince the best Handmaidens in the world then, to do what you cannot. Your son is the future, he is everything we've worked so hard and suffered so much for and died for, from my own grandmother Olenna, to Queen Sansa and all her family...it all hinges upon Prince Jon...and I'll not see you waste everything all our families have toiled for."

A smile appeared on the young princess's face. "Fine."

"Fine?" Her own mother squinted her eyes, not expecting her sudden surrender.

"Fine," she repeated. "I'll play the good daughter, the good wife, the good princess and Queen. I'll be what you want me to be, I'll be the woman Prince Rickon thinks I am." She turned to leave the room, but then looked back at her mother, because the final word was hers. As it was always meant to be. "But know that you won't live forever. Neither will Queen Sansa, or Arya Stark, or Bran of Winterfell."

_And when they all pass on, I'll finally be my own woman. And we both know that there's nothing you can do to stop that._

* * *

**Sansa**

"She's a danger. I should have seen it." She stopped herself. Why was she lying? "I _did_ see it. But Rickon loved her so...and Margaery and I had agreed upon the marriage so long ago...and I thought, if they both wanted it..."

She felt a comforting hand upon her back, and stopped, because it was pointless to keep rambling.

"You're far wiser and cleverer than me or anyone on either side of the Sea, love. But you can't predict everything, you can't win every battle, you can't solve every puzzle."

The Queen Regnant smiled at her husband, allowing herself to enjoy the comfort of his broad arms encircling her, one of the few people in the world who could make her feel small...whom she _allowed_ to make her feel small, when she wanted to. If she was an old woman, while her husband was no longer a young man, he was still a man, in the prime of his life, and the Queen was not ignorant of the whispers that he was wasted, coddling an old woman around the Seven Kingdoms...except Sansa knew there was nothing else he'd rather do.

"But I _have_ won every battle I've fought, dear." She scoffed. It did all seem so easy now, those mornings before battle when the outcome, when the fate of her own life, and all she cared about, hinged upon how a few thousand violent swords clashed randomly against each other. "If only the damned girl were as easy as a battlefield."

"Your Grace is wise to keep this from Rickon. This would break him, I'm sure of it."

A stout young man, Petyr Arryn was nowhere as tall or dashing as his father; even Sansa had to admit that, occasional traitor or not, the late Robin Arryn had grown into quite the strapping man. She'd sent the traitor's son to be raised by her brother Jon in Winterfell. He'd come to befriend Rickon whenever she took her family north, and now it was apparent that the man would become her son's Hand, once she died and he took the Throne. And that made her regret sending him north, because as good of a man Jon was, he was not one for the games around the Throne, and her son would have been better served had she taken Petyr as her own ward. It was not too late now, for him to learn from her, while her mind was still sharp enough to teach.

The Queen gripped her husband's hand, clasping tightly her waist as they strode slowly through the beautiful gardens that never failed to impress her upon each visit. "With any luck, Beryn will outlive me. And he'll split open anyone who hurts Rickon, man or woman. But neither one of us will live forever. And after we're gone, Petyr, you'll be the one who'll need to protect Rickon."

The young man smiled. "I'll have plenty of help from his sisters and brothers."

Wisely, he counted young Asha Greyjoy as one of their own. And she nearly counted Petyr as one of her children, raised by Jon as he was, because of how much her son loved him as a great friend. Perhaps this was Sweetrobin's most lasting legacy, to name as his son and heir the man who had betrayed her father, who had betrayed her in turn. But while Petyr Arryn was not as clever as her once mentor, he was not unclever, and what he lacked in mind he made up for in decency in loyalty, traits she did not doubt she could thank her brother Jon for.

"Robb may have my name," Beryn said beside her, "but the wolf runs strongest in his blood."

She'd named their third child a Dayne, so he could inherit Casterly Rock after his father, just as her second child was a Tully, and already several years settled as the Lady Paramount of the Riverlands._ If the girl hurts Rickon, she'll find herself surrounded by wolves, in blood, if not in name._

Squeezing her husband's hand again, she forced herself to confront the truth. "I think we've done well, haven't we? Raising all our children, Asha included...they've all turned out good, and decent...and devoted to our family. But if only Rickon were more...like Robb."

"Then he wouldn't have Robb watching over his throne."

"It'll be a heavy burden, Your Grace," Petyr spoke, running his hands carefully over a bed of roses, taking care to avoid cutting his fingers upon a thorn. "It'll last me my whole life, I imagine. But I'm proud to be one of the few who gets the chance to bear it, to try and preserve your legacy. If I'm successful, perhaps I can restore a touch of the honor my house once had...the honor my father threw carelessly away."

"Jon is still well?" She spoke not of her first grandchild, but of her beloved brother, more than half a continent away, whose face appeared readily in her mind any time heard mention of the word honor.

Petyr nodded. "I had planned to ride north the next moon to see him. Considering what's happened...it might be better if I remain in Eddardton a bit longer, keep an eye on things."

The Queen let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm sorry my son's...troubles must trouble you so, Lord Arryn."

The young man let out a pudgy smile. "I like to think we're all family...King Jon...Prince Rickon...and I'm just the smallest and least worthy piece of all of you. But by the Gods, I swear I'd do right by our combined families."

"I'm sure you will," the Queen decided. Seeing that she preferred his audience over, Petyr Arryn bowed, and stepped back into the corridors of the castle. So it was just her and Beryn now, wandering amongst the roses of Highgarden, once the castle of her dreams, home of the handsome young lord of her dreams...except she dared say her own husband had proven to be more handsome than the late Loras Tyrell, a man whose cruel fate at the hands Cersei Lannister she couldn't help but still mourn, briefly as she had known him.

"After a day like this," her husband mused gently, though she could tell his heart still raged, same as she, at the sheer nerve of the spoiled Princess, their daughter by law, "I think we ought to ride due south, and take a boat straight to the Arbor."

"Just us," the Queen Regnant agreed. "No Small Councils, or lords, or Queens or Princesses."

Yet looking out upon the fertile plains of the Reach, she saw hills in the distance. Hills which had been once familiar to her, hills in which she and Beryn and all the southern lords alike fled to, in search of refuge from the last Dragon. And it was in these very hills and plains, on either side of the castle, in which she had won the last of the wars, ended forever the Targaryen dynasty, and secured a claim upon the Iron Throne she had never wanted...which she nevertheless would give her own life for, so that her son and her blood may claim it forever.

_You're clever, Petyr Arryn. I hope that's enough. But I fear it won't be._

_I wish you were as clever as Littlefinger._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder that Sansa renamed King's Landing Eddardton, as the new name of the city is cited a few times.
> 
> Some of you may remember from "At the End to all Seasons" that Rickon, along with his son and heir Jon and friend Petyr Arryn, were all murdered some years into his reign by Ser Ilyn Piper of the Kingsguard, having been bribed with gold by Tyroshi magisters as part of an ongoing war with the Free Cities...or so it would seem. The killings paved the way for Sansa's grandchild Rosa to assume the crown, and become something of a cold-blooded conqueror...implying that she would secure the future and the legacy of the Stark finally through blood and war.
> 
> This little one shot makes clear that things aren't what they appeared to be, that the seeds of that assassination were planted years ago, in the reign of Sansa herself, under the Queen's own eyes. What happened in the intervening years to turn this Ilyn Piper from a loyal member of the Kingsguard to a traitor...I'll let the reader infer for themselves, as this subplot will no longer be revisited in this story.
> 
> I do promise that not all the chapters will be as dramatic, or eventful...or pessimistic. Some will be happy, some will be sad, some will be something in between. Regardless, I hope you'll choose to join me in this last journey across two continents.


	2. Braavos - 316 AC

**Sansa**

_"The heavens shake_  
_the skies should fall._  
_With Fire and Blood,_  
_I claim you all."_

_"O foul beauty_  
_you've burnt your share,_  
_a blackened realm_  
_you'd make your dragon's lair._

_Your claim, your name,_  
_the lords ignore,_  
_to wade thru' ashes_  
_than serve a dragon's whore."_

"No, no, it's all wrong. I never called her a whore." She stared at her sister skeptically. "None of us were this dramatic, not at all."

Arya looked abjectly disappointed in her. "It's a play, sister. It's not supposed to be an exact history."

The Queen Regnant of Westeros, standing in the middle of the city that was her newest conquest, crossed her arms petulantly. "Well, it shouldn't lie."

"Who's going to correct them? You?"

She had nearly the urge to pull off her wig of curly black hair and do just that. "You told me they have the best plays in this city."

"Best I've seen, anyway," Arya started, still amused. "Though I haven't gone that far out of my way to watch shows in my travels. Not much of that out on the Sunset Sea even if I wanted, I guess."

"And my hair, they've got it all wrong. It's more like Cersei's...I haven't worn mine like that since," her face flinched uneasily, "since they had me write that letter to Robb."

"Just be lucky you're not the one they're calling the whore," Arya said, poking at her with her words.

"Me," Sansa asked indignantly. "A whore? I can think of many insults they'd call me...usurper, a tyrant maybe...but whore?"

"Joffrey and Cersei were the heroes of that one."

"Oh. Well I suppose that makes sense. Not right, but it makes sense."

None of her advisors accompanied them, because she wanted to spend the day with alone, with just her sister for company. And because she trusted no one except her sister to not accidentally address her "Your Grace" and betray her identity in the middle of the busy street.

_"On bended knee, I yield the North,_  
_an' give the realm,_  
_my helm, my crown,_  
_for life, to life,_  
_not war, nor endless strife._

_This city burned._  
_How many more in turn_  
_to see dragons fly and cry out in joy_  
_or give concern, to freedom, to tradition,_  
_see its own culture become sedition,_  
_and serve as dragon's fodder, become destroyed?"_

"You enjoyed watching this trash when you were here?"

"It was for my training," Arya said, more solemnly than before. "I didn't go out of my way to seek it out." Her sister squinted her nose and mouth together. "Is it that bad?"

"I don't know, really. I don't go out of my way to watch plays like this either. What they do show me, it's usually just elegies and songs kissing the Queen's ass in hopes for favors or gold."

"That's why they say the plays in Braavos are unrivaled on either side of the Sea. No kings or queens or lords or masters or magisters to please...they can say what they wish in them, speak truth through story."

It was Sansa's turn to frown. "Will their plays speak the truth of me here? How I fomented regional and civil wars and watched the city tear itself apart, just so I could weaken it and come and take all their gold?"

A serious look from her sister, and Sansa wondered Arya would actually judge her, for her politics. But Arya herself was quite complicit, wasn't she, using the skills learned in this very city to help her do everything she'd just described.

"Depends on whether their new queen lets them, I suppose."

"So long as it doesn't result in riots." Why does everything have to come back to politics? Well, besides the fact that she was now following in Daenerys's footsteps as a conquering queen. But couldn't she just enjoy a day with her sister, watching the shows? Albeit, in disguise, amidst the city she just conquered and forced to bend the knee...but still. "There's so many mistakes," she complained, trying to change the subject back to a more general critique. "The one who plays Jon is way too tall, for one."

"And I've never heard Jon sing before, to be honest," Arya added, stifling a laugh.

"Nor did I burst into song when they crowned me in Highgarden."

"I wasn't there," Arya countered, smirking. "For all I know, you might have done just that."

"Go then, and ask Bran."

"Maybe I will," her sister bluffed.

_"A life I've given,_  
_for freedom, for free men_  
_women and children, chains broken,_  
_a throne taken,_  
_and dead men defeated in the snow,_  
_in excess, I found salvation._  
_In sorrow, condemnation._

_My sins, committed in passion_  
_tho' what greatness could I achieve,_  
_with no blood upon my sleeve,_  
_to feel not love, not hate,_  
_to let evil flow its course,_  
_and stand still, and seethe no anger nor remorse,_  
_no! I'd rather this my fate_  
_to have felt and have fought_  
_to have strived and tried._  
_I fail, because the Gods wrought_  
_not justice, their story written_  
_but tragedy, and I, their victim._

_So strike your sword thru' my heart Jon Snow_  
_an' know, neither pain nor death I fear,_  
_my body, dust tho' it may an' shall succumb_  
_but spirit given wings thru' flights of song_  
_and soar, forevermore in hallowed air."_

The crowd stilled to a deathly solemnity, the eyes of even hardened men swollen, with merchants and soldiers alike wiping shallow tears away from their eyes.

"Is it wrong that I wanted her to win, watching this?"

Arya shrugged. "Now's not the time to take off your wig, probably."

* * *

**Nala**

"A good day, a great day," Mastrano exclaimed proceeding across the room, handing the shares of gold to all of her fellow actors and actresses in the troupe.

"That's it," Bobono muttered, disgruntled, though the small dwarf's hand was overflowing with coins.

"Tis the most coin I've seen since the festival of the Titan," Nala said, removing her thick copper colored wig and hanging it back upon the wall, revealing her natural short and neatly cropped hair, dark brown in color.

"I dare say we didn' have ten different armies marching thru' the city during the festival," Bobono complained. He was always complaining. Out of all the troupe, he'd been with the group the longest. But then, it seemed so long as the man they called the Imp lived and reigned across the Narrow Sea, so there would always be an open spot for the dwarf, though Nala figured old Bobono was done the moment they could come across another mummer dwarf with a better attitude, who could actually sing, to boot. Mastrano was very fond of his songs.

"I daresay the soldiers are too busy patrolling and showing off their swords and whoring rather than come to the market and watch us." Jeyei smiled sweetly at the dwarf, and then Nala, and the younger actress smiled back. Everyone loved Jeyei, how could you not? No one knew from where she actually sailed to arrive in Braavos...some meaner voices said Lys, where'd she'd gotten her start in the pleasure houses, while others claimed the girl came from Westeros herself, an unwanted bastard daughter of some middling lord. Nala was rather apt to believe the latter, considering her natural gracefulness, her ability to speak in the tongues and accents of the Westerosi nobles. She herself struggled enough, trying to not sound like some common street urchin, while imitating the Queen who'd just conquered her own city.

They called it the Curse of Sansa the Whore, those in the know. It'd started many years ago, when Izembaro still ran the troupe, and the girl who played Sansa disappeared one day and was never seen again. Bobono claimed that a sailor he'd encountered in some tavern had seen her in Lorath, one of the cheaper girls in the brothel because her face had been lined with hideous scars. The dwarf claimed it'd been Lady Crane, another actress in the troupe, who'd attacked the girl. Everyone knew the great Lady Crane, whom Nala remembered seeing perform yet another great Queen from Westerosi, Cersei Lannister, when she herself was little more than a child. Bobono said her conscience was so distraught, after attacking her fellow actress, that she'd later slit her own throat.

But there was no curse of Cersei Lannister upon their stage. Just Sansa. The actress who'd followed the first one, Bianca, Nala thought her name was, had died of a pox not so long after her first performance. Another had broken her leg, and yet another had gotten caught in the outskirts of the city one night and grabbed by a stray Dothraki horde. Those Sansa's she remembered seeing on stage, mean and jealous and petty and...well, whorish...were nothing like the one she portrayed now.

But few wanted to play the northern girl as a result, and as stories of the Dragon Queen spread forth, freeing slaves from one city to another, Mastrano, taking over the group after Izembaro had snuck away most of the troupe's treasury to buy for himself a small villa in Pentos, shifted the focus of their performances from west to east. Nala herself hadn't been part of those leaner days, but from she heard, they'd quickly regained all the coin they had lost, not the least of which because of how easily the stories of the Dragon Queen translated to the stage, and how great a performance the beautiful Jeyei gave, transformed into a different person, it seemed to Nala, the moment she donned her shiny silver wig.

"Doesn't whoring get tiresome eventually," Bobono asked petulantly.

"Does it," Mastrano mused. The audiences loved his Jon Snow, even though Nala herself thought the character was rather boring, though she found no issue with Mastrano's portrayal.

The dwarf shrugged. "After a fifth visit the same day, I suppose so."

"Five times?" Nala nearly choked out in laughter. "You'd be out of a voice, having a go of it even twice a day." The dwarf's ballad lamenting the death of his twin siblings was one of the most popular and moving parts of their show, tone deaf as Bobono was.

"Wanna test me," Bobono asked her lecherously.

They all heard a soft murmur at the edge of the stage, cries of excitement and disbelief from the assistants and understudies. Nala craned her neck, to see what was causing the commotion, and saw a glint of silver, rounding a crop of copper red hair...the same copper as her Queen's wig.

A woman emerged, a tall woman, almost as tall as herself. Beside her walked a darker haired girl, short in almost an impish way. The older woman's face seemed familiar, and Nala realized that she'd seen her in the crowd, though her hair hadn't been red then, standing regaling and studying all of the actors and actresses...but herself and Jeyei in particular. Her dress looked Pentoshi, and she'd figured the woman was some magister's wife or daughter, visiting her city in the immediate aftermath of its conquest. But recognizing the two heads of the wolf at the top of her crown the same time as her castmates, her knees weakened, and she near fell to the floor.

"Queen Sansa?"

"Your Grace!"

The entire troupe fell clumsily to deference before their new queen, all coming down to one knee at odd angles and placements, in the spot they had been when the recognized Queen Sansa herself in their backroom. And it could be no impostor, not with her shining silver crown, not with her rich, deep red mane, no trick of the dyers...and the slow regal manner in which she glided through their backroom, as if each floor board ought rise and catch her feet step by step so that she did not have to walk herself, made her unmistakably royal.

"It's alright," the Queen said, looking rather amused at their deference, "you can all rise."

"Your Grace," Mastrano spoke for them all, "did you...did you see...I...I hope you...the show...did you enjoy it...I mean no offense..."

"The play was pleasing," the Queen said approvingly, and Nala thought Mastrano's lungs expand to twice their size in relief. "As were its portrayals."

"I did not know you were in attendance, Your Grace," Mastrano continued nervously, "I would have put forth a worthy welcome for our new Queen."

"I'd rather have seen it unaffected by its audience," the Queen responded. Her face betrayed little, and Nala wondered whether she was telling the truth. Or was she enraged, and merely toying with them while waiting for her Queensguard to come and slaughter them all.

Jeyei had sat closest to where the Queen stood now. Rising from her knee, Nala was not surprised by her boldness when she looked her in the eye and asked. "I...my...you've met the Dragon Queen, Your Grace."

"I have, a few times."

The woman's hair was naturally blond, and sometimes for their performances at night, she did not even bother wearing her silver wig, close to the right color as her hair already was.

"Did I...did I do her justice? Was I...what you remembered...of her?"

The Queen frowned slightly. "You play her with pride, with defiance."

"I do...I try rather, Your Grace."

Of course Jeyei would be the one to catch the Queen's attention. Despite the stories of the curse, Nala had signed on to take on the Wolf Queen's role a year ago, after working with the troupe several years, occasionally acting in minor roles. She feared the curse, how could she not, but how could she also refuse the opportunity? If the Dragon Queen was infamous throughout the land, here was her chance to play _THE_ queen, who'd beaten the Dragon Queen. It was her last chance, she sensed, to make a name for herself, or she'd find herself back to selling carrots on the streets sooner rather than later.

Yet, it was the Dragon Queen, or Jeyei, whom the audiences loved. Though her own character prevails and sits atop a throne by the end of _The Dragon and the Wolf_, Nala had come to realize that it was the former who made up the heart of the performance, her own character merely a dull contrast to all the varying emotions the story of Daenerys Targaryen evoked throughout all in the audience. She felt more like a prop sometimes, and often she heard various audience members grumble how boring they found the Wolf Queen. It was the character, not her portrayal, she told herself, but she wondered.

"She was a sad woman, those last days," the Queen continued. "She'd come to see her mistakes, by the end. Her pride remained, her spirit remained. The Daenerys you play, her tragedy is that she was a hero, wronged by the gods, and wronged by people like me..."

"My apologies, Your Grace...I just..."

"It's my story," Mastrano said, stepping up. "I wrote it, I didn't mean no offense, it's the story I hear in the street...an' I thought would make an effect on people..."

"It's a good story. But it's a story." Though her face was still plain, Nala thought the Queen's eyes had changed, that her mind no longer remained in this back room with them anymore, not entirely. "The real tragedy I saw, was a woman accomplished such great things, who had such a strong sense of...justice...and a woman who came to understand just how terribly she had failed according her own standards of justice, of decency. That was her tragedy. And that she could feel that and understand that, yet still stand proud and assured of herself...I suppose that's something of a triumph for her, amidst her tragedy."

Jeyei's face seemed like a child, trying to understand the Queen's words, what it meant...and Nala wondered whether she could or would even choose to transform a character she'd created in her own mind and performed hundreds of times, almost by rote by now.

"You're too valiant," the Queen continued, moving onto Mastrano, "without understanding its consequences."

"Beg pardon...Your Grace...consequences?"

"My brother Jon is valiant, that's the truth. He's brave, he's a hero...but he hated fighting, he hated killing, he hated leading. He doesn't see himself a great hero, he sees himself as someone who has to step up and lead and try and do heroic things because it's his duty...because he's good at it. Even if it kills part of his own soul, every time he raises his sword to kill another."

"Is it true," Mastrano asked, captivated by the Queen's words now, forgetting for a moment his place and her place in the world, "that he died, he came back from death itself?"

The Queen nodded somberly. "Think about it. You do what you believe is right, and your sworn brothers, men you regard as your own family, stab you in the heart for it. Yet he continued, after he came back, doing what he thought was right. Think about how hard that is, to die betrayed, then keep fighting, knowing what happened before, knowing what could happen again."

"Did he love me," Jeyei asked this time, from behind the Queen. "I mean, the Dragon Queen...did he really love her?"

The Queen paused for a moment. "With all his heart."

Her steps shuffled quicker than before, as if she were eager to leave those particular questions behind. Walking past Bobono, she spared him one piece of advice. "You're too arrogant. Tyrion is confident, he's witty, he's clever...but there's a humility you're missing. He shows his cleverness not to be the smartest person in the room, but because he wants to be liked, to be approved by others, for the person he is."

Without waiting for a response, the Queen's stride came closer and closer to Nala, whose fingers trembled, holding on to the small crown that she realized was but the palest imitation to the real one she watched gracing the Queen's head. Though standing, the two women would be close in height, Queen Sansa I Stark loomed ever higher above her as Nala realized she stood still stupidly on her knee.

"Your Grace...I..."

"A word, Lady..."

"Nala, Your Grace. And far from a lady."

The Queen motioned toward her private dressing room, and Nala rose hurriedly, running forward as if there were some way she could make her little hole in the wall hospitable for a Queen.

"My apologies," she stuttered as she walked, "I've never played a Queen before. Never played anything really, nothing more than a barmaid or a wh...a pleasure worker..."

"No need to fret. I was never a Queen either, not until I became the Queen."

The shorter girl, who seemed to act as some kind of Queensguard, slammed the door shut.

_Are they going to kill me now? Torture me first?_

"Please, a seat," Nala gestured, and the Queen sat her royal body upon the small chair she used while she fitted her wig.

_Mastrano'll sell that chair for a small fortune after this._

The Queen stared almost dumbly at her, expecting her to address her, for some reason. When her voice stayed mute, the Queen spoke.

"Ask, whatever questions you may have."

"My sister doesn't bite," the short girl said, when her throat continued to fail at drawing forth speech.

_Gods, is this Arya Stark? The faceless girl, who killed the dead?! _Whatever questions she had for her, she dared not ask. But ironically, it made addressing the Queen seem easier.

"Was I good, Your Grace," she stumbled out. "Did you, did you see yerself in me?"

"You were," Sansa said, to her relief at first. "You were royal. Not sure if I could say I was looking at myself in a mirror..."

"I must have failed," Nala said, eyes cast down in shame. "I'm just...I'm the daughter of a farmer..."

"How did you find yourself here, Nala?"

Raising her eyes to meet the Queen's, she dared answer. "I used to come to town with my father, when he'd stand in the market until dusk, selling our crops and vegetables. I hated it, so I snuck off many times. When I stumbled upon this little theatre...it was like...everything I watched, every word they said, every wig, every mask, every costume...it took me to a different place. Somewhere that wasn't my farm, that wasn't the filthy market..."

Nala stopped, realizing that she was rambling now, to the Queen. A conquering Queen, who'd just conquered her city, some said. Brought peace, others did, though those voices were far fewer.

"You have good poise, you're regal, for a girl raised on a farm."

"Thank you, Your Grace." Biting her lips, Nala dared continue. "They told me, you're like a statue. That you don't blink, you don't smile, you don't laugh."

The Queen laughed. "Is that so? I suppose I can see how they might say that." Her smile disappeared. "What else do they say about me?"

There was a lot they said about Queen Sansa in the streets of Braavos these days. Nala tried to think of something that was limited to advice given her, for her role. "That you've suffered so much, it's turned your heart to stone."

"Not entirely wrong."

When the Queen fell back into silence, Nala forced herself to speak again. "I tell myself, when I'm on stage...that's why I don't fear the Dragon Queen. Because I'm stone, and I can't be melted."

The Queen rose unexpectedly and placed both her hands upon Nala's shoulders. Somehow, she did not melt.

"I _was_ afraid," she corrected her, vivid blue eyes staring into hers. "Every night in bed, I wished I could die in my sleep, so that I did not have to face tomorrow. Every morning I woke, thinking of the dragon, hoping it'd just come and burn me, before I'd come fully awake, so as to end the waiting, and the suspense. Even after I'd heard they'd killed her last dragon...it didn't change much."

"Why?"

"Because of what I could lose. Because of the people I could let down. Because I had no choice, because I feared what would happen to what was left of my family, if I failed."

The Queen pursed her lips. "This war, Nala, it was horrible. Did you have anyone you loved die?"

She shook her head. "My family was busy with the harvest, thankfully they weren't part of it. But Garragos...he was another actor here, he was several years younger than me, I think. He didn't care about acting, but he wanted to earn enough to buy a small boat, and sail and see the other Free Cities. He was part of the group that went for the Arsenal..."

Her voice trailed off. The truth was, she had been more than just fond of him, and she dreaded the day he could decide to pick up and leave their troupe, not realizing that it would be far sooner than she'd expected, and in a way where he could never come back.

The Queen seemed to recognize the sorrow in her eyes. "It's a horrible thing, this war," she repeated. "I knew that if I failed, horrible things would happen. I also knew that if I won, I'd have to do horrible things like this, that good young men like Garragos, and women, and even children, will have to die for the decisions I'd make. That's why I dreamed of dying in my sleep every night."

Surprisingly, she found her next question coming easily. "What about now? Does it get easier?"

A small smile returned upon the Queen's face, but Nala could tell it was not a happy one. "It does. And that's terrifying."

She understood, yet could not understand.

Both of them seemed to break out of a spell the same time.

"The story's about the Dragon Queen, that's clear enough. It begins with her, and it ends with her. Your friend..."

"Jeyei."

"Jeyei...they'll love her more because she lost, they'll love her more, because they can always imagine what could have been." The Queen's sister moved to reopen the door back to join the other actors, but the Queen did not follow her just yet. "If you want the people to remember you...cast your own shadow in the tragedy of Daenerys's tragedy." She paused, and Nala understood that she'd glimpsed a rare instance, watching the Queen's mind catch up to her words. "Imagine yourself standing opposite the Dragon Queen. She casts a long shadow, yours is little. But as the gods snuff out her shadow, you're watching in horror your shadow own grow, because of the choices you made, because you refused to surrender and let her claim the shadow as her own."

Without another word, the Queen was gone. Though she barely heard the resurgence of the commotion outside, Nala remained in her changing room, and wondered whether her curse still stood. She thought not, for it would seem the Queen had taken her curse upon her own shoulders.

"Oh," the Queen suddenly interrupted, jolting Nala where she sat, "tell Mastrano that I did _not_ break into song during the Battle of Winterfell."

* * *

**Sansa**

"You're too hard on yourself sometimes, you know."

They had returned to their chambers in the palace that had formerly belonged to a Sea Lord, to a gaggle of fretful advisors worried as to where the two most royal sisters had disappeared to, earlier in the day. Watching the sun set upon the water, watching the last of the Iron Bank's gold loaded and sailing into the setting sun, Sansa returned to her scroll. She was to give a speech in the grand square the next morning to her newest subjects, before taking her leave of them back to Westeros. Speeches were not her thing, and she imagined that they probably did see her a statue during those rare occasions she was compelled to give one. Albeit one that could speak. Poorly. Especially compared to the Dragon Queen, or even Jon.

"Maybe," she mused, smiling at her sister. "Maybe not. But it gives her a better story to tell, doesn't it?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lighter little tale, this time around. Maybe a little TOO meta, but oh well. And please, pardon the poor attempts at poetry and rhyming.
> 
> Obviously Lady Crane and Bianca are canon characters from the show. So are Izembaro and Bobono, the dwarf. All the other actors mentioned are made up for the purposes of this story.


	3. The Stormlands I - 307 AC

**Ser Willam**

A light drizzle fell upon his shoulders, the soft layer of mud along the forest floor sloshing at his boots while he walked. Most men did not prefer the rain, but he was not most men. There was no insanity to his mind, of course, no man enjoyed being caught in the heaviest of storms, the weight of his own robes a cold and painful burden to carry upon his massive body, but true to his name, anything short a downpour did not trouble Ser Willam Waters. His ears savored the pitty pat sounds of the droplets falling against the trees above, shielding him from the worst of the rain, his senses took in the smell of the damp tree bark, the roots and flowers raised alive by the nectars they so needed, and as he walked he ran his hands across the broad leaves of the bushes lining the side of the small forest path, their huddled and collected pools dissipating gently from the vegetation onto his pants, a darker shade of green against its backdrop. He loved it all, because it signified home to him.

"Ser Willam! Ser Willam!"

"Robett!"

A child of eight with ruddy blonde hair ran up to him. The so-called knight tussled the boy's hair fondly. His father had been a good fighter, deadly with the axe. His father had died for him, a casualty of the nameless war they'd fought in the wooded groves of the land he'd come to call his home for the last seven years, even as Kings and Queens and dragons waged their more famous and named wars which the maesters struggled to keep up with their records, and the lute players would sing songs about, long after all the said Kings and Queens and dragons were dead.

Would they sing songs of the Good Ser Willam Waters after he died?

_Who gives a fuck, I'll be dead, an' glad of it._

"We got them, Ser Willam!"

"Slow down, Robby! Who did we get?"

"A small party of Knights, good Ser. Methinks one's them's a lord!" His bright eyes shown, unable to help but be impressed by the nobles of the land despite everything he'd lived through, despite the fact that his father, a miller whose farm had burned in the wars of the Kings and Queens, had been thoughtlessly hacked to pieces by those same highborn cunts.

"A lord, eh?" Fumbling through his wet pockets, his fingers came upon a small gold coin, which he handed to the boy, sure as he was that little Robby had been forgotten already while the rest of his fighting men split the spoils.

"And two knights!"

"Did you see what marked their flags, boy?"

"A crow, Ser! Black..."

"A Morrigen, eh?"

The broad shouldered dark-haired man ran his large, hairy fingers through his beard in thought. With a lord came good spoils, particularly a Morrigen, who'd ended up on the winning side of the last Queenswar. But with it, complications indeed, yet opportunity also.

"Well, time well enough to make haste," he said merrily, revealing none of his concerns to the child. "Lead the way, young Robett."

He was in no hurry, and by the time they reached the small clearing where the captives were bound, the rain had stopped, though their new prisoners did not look any more the happier, their hair and clothing drenched from being left hours in the open. Hostile eyes glared at each other as he circled the small group, about a dozen or so, quickly cutting the bindings of a few he recognized to be serving girls or cooks or other lowborns of the sort.

"Keep an eye of them," he ordered his men, most of them even burlier fellows than he, with their matted beards and layers of dirt accumulated for years under their fingernails. The newly freed prisoners seemed petrified of them, bindings or not, especially all the girls, and one boy he judged to be around two and ten. _Deservedly so_, Willam thought, glaring with glee at the remaining three men bound. He and his merry band of brothers were men to rightfully be feared, he'd worked for years to be assured of that.

"A Morrigen, eh," he asked, kicking at the dirt below the obviously best dressed highborn, surrounded as he was by two armored knights, one younger, one older. The man, brown hair and a light, cleanly cropped beard, was neither too old, nor too young. The Lord Lester he knew to be an old man, which meant this one of his brood most likely. "Richard, is it?"

The man shook his head. "My father. He died with Stannis at Winterfell."

Of course he did. Though he knew his houses and banners, Willam did not have the time, nor the inclinations, honestly, to keep track of every little whelp bred by the savages who fed off the people of his lands. "Yer name then?"

"Most call me Harry."

"Aye, Lord Harry," he said, cackling as he pronounced the man's name, "suppose we ought to git to knowing each other, we'll be good friends fer some time indeed."

A shiver of fear in the man's eye, which Willam guessed he'd been valiantly trying to hide this entire time.

"Yer must be the Willam bastard," the older knight spat contemptuously at him.

"Hey, you spit the word _bastard_ like it's a slur," the younger knight argued back. His hair was dark red, though his complexion was almost as dark as a Dornishman's. An odd combination, Willam thought.

"_Ser_ Willam to you," he insisted nonchalantly.

"Aye, a good joke," the younger man retorted, shrugging his shoulders as much as he could with his arms tied behind his back. "I mean it, from one bastard to another, funny recognizes funny."

Willam shrugged, taking little offense after so many years of such whispers. "Ask Lord Harry here, 'twas his uncle who knighted me, sailing towards King's Landing that night."

"Uncle Lester?"

The broad shouldered bandit shook his head. "Guyard, aye, he's a good man. Was."

"Yes, Ser Guy," Harry said, his voice still polished as he shook his head in disbelief. "Who died that night on the Blackwater. Convenient for you, eh, good Ser?"

"A shame," Willam said, with some sincerely. Guy Morrigen was certainly a hell of a better man, or knight, than the cunt he'd squired for, several lifetimes ago. A dark reminder, yet one which made their bounty of the day so appealing to him. "Small world, this," Willam muttered. But first, there was more business to attend to. Turning towards the younger knight, he quizzed him. "Ye a bastard too?"

"Aye," the young knight replied humorously, seemingly taking little interest in the fact that his life was on the line. "A bastard, and a Ser, just like you. We should drink to that, were my hands free to raise a glass of proper ale."

"A Storm, ye?"

The man nodded. "Jon Storm."

"Highborn, by the way ye talk. Suppose guessing yer house would help me pass the time better," Willam said, surveying the attitudes of his men, those who weren't still picking through the bounties of the caravan were guarding rather carelessly the more harmless of their captives.

"It'll take you a long time, used be a mighty fine house, before the Rebellion. Not much these days though."

He'd never met the man, but heard his name all the same, and his likeness, and Willam ventured towards his fellow bastard a guess.

"Yer Red Ronnet's son?"

"Ronnet's my uncle, but correct, a Connington all the same, in all but name."

Shaking his head, Willam spat at the older knight, who seemed rather bored at the whole exchange.

_Were you bored that night, or did you enjoy your orders then?_

"So what's a Connington bastard and the Heir of Crow's Nest doing travelling together with Ser Gerard here?"

The sound of his name being uttered by bandit finally caught the knight's attention.

"Ye know of me, scoundrel?"

Bending down, Willam lowered his face so that his own lips almost touched the man's lips. Breathing with an open mouth onto the knight's face, Willam stared into his dark blue eyes. "Have you fergotten of me already? I _know_ you, Gerard of House Wylde, second son of a third son, Castellan to House Buckler." Unbending his knees to rise back to his full and towering height, he kicked the man square in his face, bloodying his mouth immediately, and by the sound of it, taking away several of the man's teeth with one blow. "Yer a long ways from Bronzegate."

"Ser Gerard traveled to Crow's Nest on Lord Ralph's behalf," the young Harry hastily spewed out, horrified by what had just happened. Perhaps the seriousness of his predicament was finally dawning on him.

Willam turned gruffly to the young lord. "Why?"

"A marriage, good...Ser, between Lord Ralph's son Kennen, and my sister."

"Twas agreed upon by Lord Lester," the Connington bastard added. "We were riding to Storm's End to seek the Queen's blessing."

Of course he knew of the Queen's arrival further north, having sent scouts to the northern edges of the woods, then arriving himself. Few of the arriving lords needed travel through the Rainwood, excepting the Morrigens and the Mertyns, though he'd heard the latter had chosen to travel by sea instead, probably seeking to avoid Willam and his sworn brothers.

"Jon Storm," Willam said, preferring to address his fellow bastard, "who knighted ye?"

"Ser Balon Swann, my good Ser," the red haired man replied, far less reluctant at addressing him by his proper title, "months before he died at the burning of King's Landing."

"A man of the Kingsguard," Willam digested. "A good and honorable knight, by all accounts, rare thing in a Lannister court indeed." His eyes turned to Ser Gerard, eyes cast down towards the blood trickling from his lips, and Willam resisted the urge to strike the man again. "You believe yer vows, Ser Storm? To fight valiantly, protect the weak?"

"I do," Jon replied, reasonably confused at such questions regarding his honor. "Haven't had the chance to do much of that, Lord Lester kept his bannermen from declaring for either Queen Sansa or the Dragon Queen until word of Daenerys's defeat at Last Ridge...barely got to the Blackwater in time to see her surrender..."

"I meant about protecting the weak," Willam said. Looking at one of his men, he gestured towards the lord's attendants. "Tie cloths about their eyes, and Ser Storm's here. Take them north, till ye find yeself within sight of Griffin's Roost." Then, he cast his eyes back down at the young man. "I can't imagine it too hard to keep them unmolested until ye reach Storm's End from there."

He could tell the young knight could not help but be elated, tantalized by the news of his own escape. Frowning, he turned his head towards his fellow captives. "What about Lord Harry and Ser Gerard, Ser Willam?"

"Tell Her Grace I'll release the heir to Crow's Nest in exchange fer Lord Ralph himself."

"Ralph Buckler," Harry asked, more puzzled than ever. "The Lord of Bronzegate? Seems a bit much of a trade, even for a castellan and an heir."

Shaking his head furiously, Willam growled. "Just the heir." Pulling out his knife, he bent down again and cut a bloody, shallow path across the older man's cheeks. Gerard Wylde screamed, a short burst of sound which arose probably not from the pain itself, Willam reckoned, but the sudden shock of it all. "Ser Gerard won't be leaving these woods alive, I don't think." Placing one finger upon the fresh cut, he waited until sufficient blood had trickled upon his palms, then raised his hand back up to his chest, smearing the blood across the front of his green vest. "Though," the leader of the Rainwood Brotherhood said darkly, "he'll be takin' his time in dyin'."

Suddenly, recognition dawned in his eyes, and Ser Willam Waters knew that Gerald Wylde had come to the realization as to just exactly why his last days in life would consist of brutal suffering beyond the pale of all the laws of gods and men.

* * *

**Sansa**

_Joffrey._

_Tyrion._

_Littlefinger._

_Ramsay._

The first and last the less spoken of the better. Tyrion was kind, and she supposed some found him handsome. Shae, her old handmaiden, apparently. And as for Littlefinger...perhaps he could have looked...prettier...in her eyes, if he hadn't been so old, and so...well, _Littlefingery_.

_Arya has all the luck,_ she thought, following the bright eyed and handsome young Lord of Storm's End as he stumbled his way through showing her his new castle. At the risk of comparing each other's sufferings again on their respective roads back to Winterfell, as much as her sister went through, there was something to be said about a portion of that riding through the seven kingdoms with Gendry, legitimized a Baratheon by her predecessor of sorts. Hells, even her faceless teacher, Sansa forgot the name, Arya had once mused that he wasn't all that bad on the eyes, her sister recalling while they drank tea by the fire together the night before she set sail away from Westeros and away from her life.

"How do you like it," Sansa interrupted, just as the new Lord Paramount of the Stormlands launched into a detailed description of the sewage pipes, pointing down from the bannisters overlooking the rocky shore where each tunnel emptied out into the bay.

"It's a decent castle, Your Grace," Gendry said nervously, as if she were just a Queen Regnant, and not a Queen Regnant and also sister of the girl he once took a piss in front of, several days' ride from King's Landing.

_Eddardton_, she corrected herself. She still needed to get used to the own changes she was making to her realms.

"Elaborate, Lord Gendry," she said, smiling so that he knew she wasn't being impatient or cross with him. "Tell me, do you like the furnishings, the brickwork, the statues, your art? Is it too cold at night, too warm in the day? Are the servants well-trained? Does the castellan treat them well? Do the gates open smoothly, or creak unnecessarily..."

"Your Grace," Gendry replied, obviously overwhelmed by her questioning, "to be honest, I've only been inside two castles, before Storm's End. Winterfell I lived practically in the forges. And Dragonstone...well," the young lord looked at his feet, "Dragonstone just...wasn't a good stay at all."

She raised her eyebrow, enjoying Gendry's discomfort as his cheeks turned nearly red. "Arya told me quite the opposite, you know. How you learnt and saw many a thing in Dragonstone..."

"Arya lies," he said crossly, and far too short towards a Queen, and quickly Gendry recognized his lapse in protocol. "Apologies, Your Grace, I don't mean to question the honestly of your sister, but the Princess..."

The smile remained upon her face, Sansa hoping she could put him more at ease. "I don't think I'm even allowed to call her princess." Shaking off the temptation of levity, she turned away from the ocean, the walls buffering the waves, and the new lord who presided over it all. "Are your vassals well gathered?"

"I think so, Your Grace," he said uncertainly.

"These are your men, your ladies," she said, her voice no longer formal speaking to a good acquaintance of her sisters, but sternly towards a rather important subject and Lord Paramount of hers. "Don't show them the uncertainty you show me now, else they'll eat you and yours alive for the rest of your days."

"Apologies, Your Grace," Gendry muttered, and Sansa still puzzled over how this ability of her crown to leave the strongest and most handsome of men so petrified in her wake. He laughed nervously. "I'm just a bastard, an' not just any bastard, I was a bastard in Flea Bottom while most of these lords and ladies had servants who were ten times better born than me. I don't know how to rule, Your Grace, I don't know how to lord...I...this castle's so big, I honestly don't even know if I've picked the right chambers for its lord."

He nearly trembled as he addressed her, and the Queen felt pity for the young man, who in actuality was several years older than her. She supposed that the Dragon Queen enjoyed such displays of fealty and fear, and placed her bet that such sentiments would have been enough to keep her upon her throne for the rest of her days, no matter how many cities she burned into dust. Thus, the poor young man was thrust into a role that may prove far beyond him; Gendry was right, he _was_ a bastard, and while he may have a former King's blood in him, far more bastards in the realm grew up with further knowledge of ruling and leading and knowing the simplest proprieties of a lord from merely an existence as even a lord's ward, or the bastard of a castellan or kennel master or something of the sort.

"Act then. You fought in war, haven't you?"

"I've had my share," Gendry nodded. "Mostly against the dead rather than the living."

"Any of the living wouldn't stand a chance against your hammer," she stated plainly.

"Probably not," he conceded.

"Think not of their birth, their place...think of this castle as your court, your field. You wouldn't fear them in a battle, so think of your home the same way, because you'll have to defend your right to Storm's End for the rest of your days, that of yours and your children."

"Aye," Gendry agreed, "Your Grace is wise."

Feeble assurances aside, the Queen wondered just how confident the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands sat in his own home. Fortunately, she supposed, he had an easier job in Storm's End than anywhere else in the realm. The didn't call the Stormlands the _'bastards' kingdom'_ because of their new liege's circumstances of birth, but because of Stannis's failed wars, and how many of his bannermen died, first at the Blackwater, then in the snows between Castle Black and Winterfell at the hands of the Boltons. That disastrous expedition, its end she'd witnessed with her own eyes, her skin still throbbing with pain whilst she forced herself atop the battlements in search of saviors, one doomed, the other late but true, had robbed the kingdom, which merely a generation before, had seen its own Lord Paramount raised to the Iron Throne, now wholly depleted of fighting men, able knights, and most importantly...heirs with unrivaled claims.

_Appropriate, _she thought, _this Queen with no right nor claim the first king or queen these bastards and broken things get the chance to meet._

Gathered in the Great Hall, as the maester of the called announced the attendance of all those present, were a disconcerting list of second and third sons, cousins, uncles, widows, daughters, many of them married off to other houses...and yes, in many cases, bastards who believed they had their own claim to the seats of the departed fathers they claimed for themselves. There was a reason she'd picked Storm's End to visit so early within her reign, knowing full well what the Dragon Queen did not, in that the young former smith would find it exceedingly difficult to sort through for himself the tattered remains of the wars he was saddled with now.

"Lord Erick Storm, of House Dondarrion," the maester, a relatively younger one with dark brown hair, announced.

"House Dondarrion," Gendry said, seated next to her, reading off the list they'd prepared for him for his attendants. "You claim to be Lord Beric's bastard son, good ser?"

"Aye, I do," the red haired young man affirmed before them. "Me father wus betrothed, but never wed his intended, an' he promised me..."

"How old are you, Erick?" The Queen saw fit to interrupt, her crown, a thin silver band with two wolf's heads met and nuzzled in the middle, weighing lightly upon her head, as opposed to her other, heavier crown.

"Three and thirty years of age, Your Grace."

"Is that so," she questioned skeptically. "That would make Lord Beric eleven years of age when your mother gave birth to you. Ten, when you were conceived, though I'd judge you to look even older than what you claim."

Her questioning had little effect on the man. "Me father was a virile lad, they tells me."

"Just whom did you say your mother was again?"

"She was a lady in waiting in Lord Renly's household, Your Grace," the man stated, less confident as before.

"I happened to have met Lord Beric, you know, when he was at Winterfell. My sister Arya knew him quite well. His betrothed, Allaria, is sister to Mortimer Dayne, my new Lord of Casterly Rock. Shall I write him, to ask him knowledge of the Lady Allaria's knowledge of her betrothed's paramours?" The Queen sighed, bemoaning already how much time had been wasted on this scoundrel, when there was so much more to be settled in so little time. "Do you know what the punishment is for lying to your Queen?"

"Yer Grace, I don't lie," he said, some panic building in his eyes now finally. _Good_.

"I should have your tongue out." The few knights in Gendry's service moved menacingly at the man, ready to act at her beck and call. _Good. Let them know my power is real, even if my claim did not exist until I was crowned._ "Perhaps it will be so. You will accompany Ser Kennen in pursuing the Rainwood Brotherhood. Acquit yourself well, and you will receive a pardon. But be assured that if I or Lord Gendry receive any word otherwise, you will be properly punished for the crime of perjury."

They quickly escorted the man out and brought forth the next supplicants, two brothers, nephews of the late Lord Parlen Cafferen, who'd died with Stannis at Winterfell, next to an older woman who was the former lord's sister. The Queen felt more disposed to side with the Lady Meria, who was several years older than the late Ser Lucer Cafferen, the father of the said nephews who'd died even before his brother Parlen, one of the few Westerosi knights to perish at the hands of the wildlings during the short battle which saved Jon's life from Mance Rayder's mercies.

But even as she listened to the rivaling claims to Fawnton, she couldn't but feel her mind vexed towards the problems of the bandits who'd discovered the headless Stormlands easy prey for their illicit activities. Gendry's inherited mess meant the young and inexperienced lord needed men he could trust, especially considering the amount of Storm lords she'd hanged for betraying her first, then Daenerys, during the last of her wars against the Dragon Queen. Ralph Buckler had been one of the few whose fealty survived, having accompanied Roland Crakehall north, rather than the traitor Aemon Estermont east, to Summerhall. The older man was lame, his leg limping still from the last of the battles waged in her name, but his son was young, brash, strong, and eager to prove himself, which was why she'd appointed Ser Kennen the leader of the expedition to hunt down the bandits, preferably successfully while she still sat ensconced in Storm's End.

"Lord Harril, Lord Joffrey," she tried not to choke on the latter name, "prove your worth in the Rainwood, and I'll give further considering to your claims. Lady Meria, have you not considered a second marriage?"

Her first husband, a Penrose who'd of course died with Stannis also, this one at the Blackwater, had left behind a rather attractive widow despite her age, which Sansa guessed to be well above thirty years.

"I'd be willing," the lady agreed, "but there seems two widows to every bastard in the Stormlands these days." Her clever green eyes sparkled as she talked, and Sansa looked at Gendry, wondering just how long the newly minted Lord Paramount would allow her sister's memory to delay for him a proper marriage with a proper Lady, maiden or not, so as to form a beneficial alliance in the securing of the lands which now answered to him. The Queen winked at Gendry, who seemed flustered in response towards the fair haired widow who showed nary a line upon her face to betray her many years of life.

Were it solely up to her, she would prefer to award the inheritance of the castle to the Lady Meria, rather than the two brash and rather foolish, rude young boys whose petitions she'd just suffered. But much as she would have liked, one election of a Queen did not overturn thousands and thousands of years of Andal traditions, laws, and precedents. Immediately, she wished that she'd brought Lord Tyrion along, to help her review these cases and consider how the laws may be reformed slowly, in a way which would escape the immediate notice of all the powerful men of the realm.

_In the meantime, perhaps one or both of them may perish trying to subdue the bandits,_ her mind thought darkly. _Maybe the Rainwood Brotherhood has its uses after all._

"Your Grace." A young woman, with rough matted brown hair. Sansa guessed her to be of a similar age to herself, maybe a year or two older.

"To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking to?"

"The Lady Vinissa Mertyns, Your Grace."

The Queen gulped. "Widow of the late Lord Aemon Estermont."

Whom she had hanged by her orders in the wake of his attempted defection back to her cause, after the Battle of Gardener's Crossing.

"Your Grace, I don't wish to make excuses for my late husband's treasons. To be honest, I barely knew him, we were married less than a year before he rode to Highgarden."

"What is it you ask then, Lady Vinissa?"

The woman's face, not plain and far from beautiful, seemed made of stone, and Sansa could not tell just how sincere her protestations were. Yet, what harm could a minor widow from a smaller house pose her? And what use was there in holding the grudges of the last war forever, even when the woman before her may or may not hold a similar grudge till the end of her days?

"It's been made known to me that I'm no longer welcome in my late husband's castle. I could return to Mistwood, Your Grace. I probably should, my mother and Lord brother would welcome me with open arms."

Lady Mary Mertyns and her son Jase, Sansa reminded herself.

"I've ravens from Lord Jase," Gendry said, and Sansa was proud of the young man's quick recollection, "he's met with storms but set to arrive within the fortnight." The young Lord Paramount frowned. "You don't wish to return home to Mistwood?"

"I could sail back home with my brother," the young woman agreed. "Few need pity this widow, a life of wine and spinstering gossip ahead of her. But if I may be honest, my Lord, Your Grace...home is boring. I wish for a place in court. I don't presume to ask for one in yours, though I would be much flattered...but any house which may have me, with the Queen's blessing, whether it be King's...Eddardton, or Highgarden, Oldtown," she looked plainly at Gendry, "or even Storm's End, my lord."

"I suppose I see no reason in denying..."

Before she could continue, echoes of frantic shouts and footsteps interrupted her pronouncement. With haste, the reason for the interruption was brought into the Great Hall, a rather dirty looking man with dark red hair and a darker colored beard. From next to Gendry on the far side of the table, Ser Kennen Buckler recognized the new entrant, even as the Lady Vinissa, sensing the gravity of the matter, shuffled aside for the man to take her place before the Queen and her lords.

"Jon," Kennen muttered, half in disbelief, "Jon Storm? That you under all that mud?"

"You know him," the Queen asked.

"Aye, I do," Kennen nodded. "He rides with Lord Lester Morrigen of Crow's Nest." Squinting his eyes, the young heir leaned forward to question the man whose name seemed too similar a southern iteration of her own brother's. "Where's Lord Harry?"

"Captured in the Rainwood," the man replied, out of breath, "along with Ser Gerard."

"My father's castellan," Kennen explained to the Queen and Lord Gendry, before turning suspiciously back at Jon. "They let you go, or did you escape the bandits on your own?"

"They allowed me leave, my lord," the bastard explained, "to accompany Lord Harry's household to safety."

"Generous of the bastard," Ser Kennen muttered skeptically, though it seemed the honest truth. "I assume this _good ser_ Willam wants a ransom for Harry Morrigen and Gerard?"

"Just Lord Harry," Jon replied nervously, "I doubt Gerard breathes, as we speak."

A wince from Kennen, and Sansa wondered how well he'd known his castellan, and whether such a relationship could lead to rashness from the man she'd just appointed to lead the expedition against the Rainwood Brotherhood.

"What's the price," the Queen asked carefully.

The bastard paused briefly before speaking, looking her in the eye. "Ser Kennen's lord father, they ask for."

"Lord Ralph?"

"My father?"

"Why," she demanded.

Jon Storm shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted. "He didn't like Ser Gerard at all, maiming him in our presence within minutes of meeting the man."

"All those years in the woods must've made Waters a madman," Kennen said from her right, his mission suddenly all the more personal to the young lord. Standing, bowing before her, he seemed to have made up his mind upon something. "With Your Grace's permission, we'll ride south on the morrow."

"Is that wise," Gendry broached cautiously, looking back towards her after he spoke, as if seeking further permission to continue, which the Queen gave with a subtle lowering of her eyelids and chin. "Clearly releasing your father to the brotherhood is out of the question, but would the bandits take this as bad faith and harm Lord Harry?"

"Maybe," Kennen said solemnly. "Maybe Ralph Buckler's son will suffice for the madman. What better way to find out?"

"You'll march tomorrow," the Queen assented. "Chase down what you can of the brotherhood and their leader, but preserve first your own life Ser Kennen, preserve the heir to Crow's Nest after."

"I'll bring you the bastard's head," Kennen Buckler swore to her, and again Sansa questioned the wisdom of assigning a boy of eight and ten to lead a war whose stakes had just arisen thricefold in the past few minutes. But it had been a matter of politics, after all. With the Stormlands so decimated for lords, it was as imperative as ever that the young heirs to the kingdom given the chance to prove themselves in name and reputation.

"I want Willam Waters alive, if possible," she said calmly. "The Queen's justice is best delivered by the Queen herself, after all."

Though the Queen gave little chance that her words would be remembered and heeded amidst the heat of the upcoming battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we finally get to see what good ol' Gendry's up to.
> 
> As you can see, this will be a longer story, I anticipate 3 parts to it, maybe two.
> 
> Considering that I've had to introduce a shit ton of Houses comprised of OC's and minor canon characters, I figured it might prove useful to have a listing below of the characters mentioned who may or may not have a role to play in the upcoming chapters
> 
> "Ser" Willam Waters - A bastard, origins unknown, though presumably from the Crownlands. OC.
> 
> Lord Ralph Buckler - Lord of Bronzegate. Canon.  
\- Ser Kennen Buckler - His son, a boy of 18. OC
> 
> Ser Ronnet Connington - A relation of Jon Connington, former Hand to Aerys II. Canon.  
\- Jon Storm - His bastard nephew. OC
> 
> Lord Lester Morrigen - Lord of Crow's Nest. Canon.  
\- Richard Morrigen - His brother, deceased. Canon.  
\- Guyard Morrigen - His brother, deceased. Canon.  
\- Harry Morrigen - Richard's son, and heir to Crow's Nest. OC.
> 
> Ser Gerard Wylde - Castellan to Ralph Buckler. Unknown relation to known lords of House Wylde. OC
> 
> Lord Aemon Estermont - Former Lord of Greenstone. Deceased. Canon, also appeared in War/5 Queens.
> 
> Lady Mary Mertyns - Dowager Lady of Mistwood. Canon.  
\- Lord Jase Mertyns - Her son & Lord of Mistwood. OC.  
\- Lady Vinissa Mertyns - Her daughter, and widow to Aemon Estermont. OC.
> 
> Lord Parlen Cafferen - Lord of Fawnton. Deceased. OC.  
\- Lady Meria Cafferen - His sister, a widow. OC.  
\- Lord Lucer Cafferen - His brother. Deceased. OC.  
\- Lords Harril & Joffrey Cafferen - Lucer's sons. OC's.
> 
> Erick Storm - A bastard. Claims to be son to Beric Dondarrion, likely false. OC.


End file.
